


How Far Can One Summer Go?

by greyish



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Road Trip, Summer Fic, mentions of emotional abuse - see notes, modern day AU, transgirl!cosette
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-04-30 09:31:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5158778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyish/pseuds/greyish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire, Eponine, Muschietta, Cosette and Gavroache pack up their lives and drive for two days to start fresh in Melbourne. Unfortunatly, "starting fresh" is a fairly tricky skill to master.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. we're burning all the bridges now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grantaire makes enough food for everyone, fills up drink bottles with water, puts it all together in his backpack, and wonders when the hell he became a soccer mum.

T

They have three months from graduation to the start of term. One summer. Grantaire is curled up on Eponine ’s armchair, watching her organising her shit all over the floor. She’s bickering with Cosette over who gets to drive first. He doesn’t bother reminding them it’s Musichetta’s car.

(Two weeks ago, he’d sat on this same armchair and watched Eponine stand quietly in the doorway, staring down at the girls and Gavroche spread out over her floor, her face unreadable in the dark. An unpleasant sensation had spread across his chest, burning cold up his throat.)

“We have to pack food,” Cosette yells, “Two days, Ep! I’m not eating fast food and gas station sandwiches for two days!”

“God, if you want to bring food you can make it yourself.”

“I’m not doing everything.”

“Great, I’ll do the driving.”

“Have you seen my – fuck no. You’re not winning this.”

The mood takes a sharp left into ‘hysterical laughter and sock war’ that ends with Cosette tackling him to the ground while Eponine pelts him with rolled up tshirts until he agrees to make the food for them.

“There has to be fruit!” Eponine says, suddenly invested, “and sandwiches, but nice ones.”

“Cheese and Lettuce”

“Ham, too.”

He ends up making four stacks of sandwiches in the kitchen of his house while his parents are at work. Cheese and Lettuce, Lettuce and Ham and Cheese, Jam and Cheese, Peanut Butter. He wraps them individually and labels them with a sharpie: C&L, L, H&C, J&C, PB. He makes five lots of fruit salad and packs them in his mums Tupperware containers. He buys five packets of instant meals from the supermarket. Then he fills up five drink bottles with water, puts it all together in his backpack, and wonders when the hell he became a soccer mum.

“I made enough food for the first day.” He says to Eponine on the phone, “not making more. It wouldn’t be fresh anyway.”

“We’ll cope. Do you need help with your stuff?”

Grantaire says no, but she comes over anyway. He only wants to take about ten percent of his clothes, he has a few books he wants to keep but not the art ones – he pretends not to notice Eponine packing them in a red bag along with the pencils and sketchbooks he hoarded up over the years. The set of her jaw tells him she’ll put up a hell of a fight, and he’s tired. Too tired for this. Two weeks ago, he had watched Eponine walk straight to the kitchen, stepping over Gav where he lay curled around a pillow, and pour herself a whole glass of vodka. Straight. He followed her.

“What happened?” He asked softly.

“I need a drink.”

Grantaire tried to act like he wasn’t quietly panicking. She rolled her eyes.

“What?” He asked.

“I am a goddamn adult.”

“Okay. I mean I feel like your obsession with nerf guns kind of counteracts that but – ”

“Grantaire.”

“Drinking at two am though?”

“I mean, I…” She sighed, “I’m an adult. I can handle this fucking situation.”

“Okay, sure, but…”

“You don’t even know what I’m talking about.”

“I know you can handle it.” He said, even though his mind was helpfully whirring through a thousand scenarios she couldn’t handle, everything from getting fired to secret espionage to an alien invasion –

“I got fired,” She said, gripping the counter with both hands.

Oh. Oh fuck.

“Oh.” Grantaire said, “Okay.

She laughed and hugged him tightly. He squeezed her back. Breathe, he thought, just keep breathing.

“Oh God, R.” Her voice broke a little, “What will we do? Musichetta can’t cover everything. I won’t send Gav home. They’d never take Cos back. Where will we live?”

“We’ll figure it out.” Grantaire told her, and willed himself to believe it.

The road trip had been coming for years. It was hard to tell how the idea started or who came up with it first, but it had always been there, whenever things got really bad, when Grantaire was eleven and closeted to everyone but Eponine and scared as shit about his parents finding out, whenever Cosette showed up at school with no bruises but shaking hands and white knuckles, when Eponine took over taking care of Gavroche at a ridiculously young age because their parents just wouldn’t, and Cosette couldn’t… whenever they needed to say fuck it, let’s leave, it was there.

Then Bossuet moved to Melbourne. They had a destination. More importantly, they had a precedent. He has to wait for Musichetta since she’s the only one with a car and he doesn’t want to lug all his crap over to Eponine ’s place on foot. Eponine waits with him. They sit and smoke on his veranda until she has to go pick up Gav from school.

“I’ll see you later, yeah?” She asks, tugging the red bag over her shoulder like she’s daring him to say something.

He says nothing. She peddles away on her bike and he waits a while longer, watching the street for his ride. He goes back to his bedroom and runs his hands over the dust coving his desk. He texts his parents: _Going to Melb w friends tomorrow. Not sure when will be back._ He waits a while, but they don’t reply.

Before Grantaire leaves home he throws his parent’s favorite vase out his window and watches it shatter into a million ugly pieces.

Musichetta watches from the hood of the car, but she doesn’t say a word.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from Bridges by Broods


	2. all about making good time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> road trip! and friendship.

“Bossuet called again,” Musichetta tells him at the turn off of his street.

“He decide not to house us after all?”

She snorts.

“Are you fucking me? He’s so psyched. Wants to know what colour to paint the guest room.”

“They have a guest room?”

She shrugs, “it’s a whole thing, where he’s living – open house and all that jazz. He said two people can sleep in his room, he’ll stay with his boyfriend, three of us can go in the big room because it’s got a trundle bed…”

Grantaire nods like he isn’t internally freaking out. It didn’t seem completely insane to him before that Bossuet would be excited about five people he hasn’t seen in three years (including his ex girlfriend and one twelve year old) crashing at his place with only two weeks notice. This is Bossuet. He’s a fucking _gem._ That, and he’s pretty much Musichetta’s soul mate.

“He has a boyfriend?” Grantaire asks, aiming for casual. Musichetta looks at him sideways, her lip twitching slightly.

“Yeah, for a while now.” She says, “He’s a cool guy. We talk online all the time.”

“Oh.” Grantaire says. One little piece of solid information – Musichetta and Bossuet were _meant to be together –_ slipped away like it was nothing at all. Even at the depths of his ‘cynical as all hell’ anti-love war (which sunk him to lows of shitty-ness he’d rather not dwell on) he’d never doubted them. An uncomfortable thought emerges that this was less to do with them or their relationship and more to do with the fact that Grantaire really, really hates change. Creature of habit. He always has been.

He decides he’s better than that now. If Musichetta’s not upset about it, there’s no reason he should be.

“Grey.” Grantaire says suddenly. This elicits another snort from Musichetta.

“Uh, no. We decided not to encourage your emo.”

“Fuck you. Grey isn’t emo.”

“You’re thinking like, storm cloud grey though. Streaks of black and deep, dark blue. Impressionistic clouds over a shipwreck.”  
  
“Wrong.”

“Liar.”

She’s right. She always is.

They’ve got a thousand and twenty four dollars between them and Musichetta’s car. They’ve got a couple of bags of their stuff, including a red one Grantaire pushes to the back of his mind, where it dances around the edges of his thoughts in an absurd pantomime. Cosette won't stop chanting _road trip_ in his ear. He would strangle her, but Eponine would kill him.

“I’m bored.” Gav says. “And Cos is being embarrassing.”

“Cos.” Eponine says, “The twelve year old wants you to be more mature.”

“ _Your Mum_ wants you to be more mature.”

“Your mum wants you to shut the fuck up.” Eponine counters, and sort of loses the upper ground in the whole maturity argument as a result.

Grantaire tilts his head back and stares out the window. It’s five am because they wanted an early start, and the streets are on the early side of dust, soft grey light just beginning to form shadows into something legible. He’s itching to paint it, but he squashes the feeling down.

 _“Road trip! Road Trip!”_ he starts chanting softly, catching Cosette’s eye. They don’t stop laughing until Eponine threatens to crash the car on purpose.

They leave the suburbs behind them and reach the longest stretch of road Grantaire has ever seen in his life.

“This is the longest stretch of road I have ever seen in my life” He says, after and hour of driving down the longest stretch of road he had ever seen in his life.

“I know” Cosette says, “I mean, I know the road was going to be long but this is _so long.”_

She sounds weirdly enthused at the thought. Grantaire’s legs are cramped, the car smell terrible, Musichetta has horrible taste in music, and there is nothing but endless monotonous scenery outside the car to distract him. He’s pretty psyched too.

“Musichetta, you’re music sucks.”

“Oh my god, R, if you don’t shut up I’m kicking you out of the fucking car.”

“Stop playing indie shit”

“Stop complaining about every goddamn thing, I know you love this band.”

Grantaire considers this statement. It’s true he does love the band, but ten years of insisting that he hates Musichetta’s music taste is not something to just throw away. Because honestly, the backstreet boys obsession alone… He opens his mouth to say something shitty but Eponine elbows him hard in the side and he capitulates. It’s his turn to sit in the middle, despite insisting that his longer legs should somehow exempt him.  
  
“I hate sitting in the middle” he grumbles.

They stop at a gas station for a toilet break and Grantaire stumbles out of the car and flops straight onto the footpath, contemplating kissing the ground for comic effect. No one’s paying him much attention, so he decides it would be wasted. He spreads out his limbs and groans loudly instead. Eponine steps on him.

“It was an accident.” She says, lip twitching as they walk into the store, “you can’t prove anything.”

“It _hurt.”_

“You’re fine.”

They grab pringles to share so the station guy doesn’t get pissed at five people for just showing up and using the bathroom without buying anything and hightail it out of there, Grantaire almost crashing when Cos screams _hit the gas_ at the top of her lungs.

The next time they park, it’s on a random stretch of grass with a few park benches and Cosette takes Gav running down the side of the road, hollering at the top of their lungs to get all the energy out.

“They’re insane.” Eponine says, flopping down on the grass, “I couldn’t move if you paid me.”

“You’ve been sitting for hours.”

“It’s exhausting.”

Musichetta walks around the car a few times.

“We should get there in about three hours.” She says, “I think it’s R’s turn again.”

“No, I just drove” Eponine says, “So it’s Cosette.”

“No, it’s me, then Cos, then you – ”

“When is it Gav’s turn?” Grantaire asks whimsically. Eponine throws grass at him.

Cosette returns carry Gav upside down, squealing.

“I caught a bear,” She says, flipping him right way up again and pulling him down to the ground. “I’m going to give him lots of bear hugs.”

Gav groans and tries squirming out of her snuggle fest.

“Get off me” he says, “Loser.”

“Never!” she declares, but loosens her grip enough for him to run off again. She jumps up and chases after him. Eponine forgets her earlier statements and goes pelting after them, the three of them whooping around between sunlight blue and yellow-green grass.

When they’re not battling each other, Eponine and Cosette make a deadly team. Grantaire thinks maybe the only reason they fight so much is because they’re the only ones who could ever take each other. Musichetta just rolls her eyes, and Grantaire is incapable of taking anyone, let alone Eponine’s deadly sarcastic determination and Cosette’s Disney Princess eyes and subtly brilliant lower lip tremor. Gavroche though, he fights dirty. The leaf fight they’ve got going right now is absolute carnage. He thinks he should probably hide in the car before he gets dragged into it, but he’s transfixed.

“I love that.” Musichetta says quietly, watching them too, “I love that they can laugh like that still. Be playful. You know?”

He does know. He also knows what a shitty person he is, because all the relief and happiness he feels for them is rotting away with sick, desperate envy. _You’re the lucky one,_ he reminds himself, but he as much as he knows it’s true, he can’t make himself feel like it is.

They leave again with Cosette in the drivers seat. She rolls down the windows and Grantaire cranks up the music and they sing Killers’ songs and Florence + the Machine until Musichetta demands _Everybody_ for her Backstreet Boys fix, and Grantaire groans but he complies and doesn’t even pretend not to know the words.

By the time they stop to sleep Grantaire feels almost okay again.


	3. will you come, brighten my corner?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The guy who opens the door is not Bossuet. He glares like a small herd of children just refused to get off his lawn. Grantaire hopes that’s his default expression.
> 
> “You’re the kids from Brisbane?” He asks. Kids. Like he’s eighty years old instead of probably the same age as them.

They shell out to stay in a crappy motel room because no one trusts Gavroche in a youth hostel. Grantaire and Eponine are fulfilling their role as the family night owls/nicotine addicts; smoking out front their hotel room while everyone else sleeps. He watches the glow of Epoine’s cigarette sway back and forth in the dim moonlight, sketching the scene out in his mind. Lots of charcoal in grey and black with subtle hints of red and gold chalk pastels – all smudged together and glowing around her blurred face. _The real Epoine,_ he thinks, _or one of them anyway._ Truth was a tricky thing, he knew.

“Hey…” Grantaire trails off.

“Yeah?”

“Musichetta told me Bossuet has a boyfriend now.”

“Yeah, for a while now. Bossuet didn’t tell you?”

“We don’t really talk much.”

They sit in silence for a while, Grantaire trying to fight off the itch around his shoulders.

“What?” Eponine asks eventually.

Grantaire shrugs. “I kind of figured they were waiting for each other.”

“You figure a lot of stupid things.”

Grantaire thinks about this. Three years is a long time to not see someone, but it’s also a long time for both of them to stay single. Grantaire know Musichetta isn’t into hookups, used to tease him and Eponine about them when she was younger and more inclined to view hookups as cheap. He still can’t explain to her the way he gets restless. Sometimes he just needs mindless sexual activities to dull the whirring in his head. Eponine sighs.

“Look, R…” she pauses, “Musichetta and I, we’ve had this thing… Not a big deal, just… part of our friendship.”

“Friendship bracelets?” He guesses. She laughs and bumps his shoulder.

“All I’m saying is don’t freak out. Whatever happens, okay?”

She flicks out her cigarette and goes inside before he can laugh in her face. _Don’t freak out._ Has she _met_ him?

The next day they wake up at five am because Cosette is a fucking _tyrant._ Eponine doesn’t stop bitching until Cosette challenges her to Celebrity Heads and they spend the rest of the ride shouting the most ridiculous suggestions they can think of and not asking a single preliminary question after Grantaire’s _are you an auxiliary verb?_

(In their defense, the answer was yes. Eponine is the worst at Celebrity Heads.)

They stop for lunch at KFC and Eponine disturbs the other customers by yelling _no, David Hamilton is not a goddamn auxiliary verb Grantaire_ while they wait for their food. Grantaire opens his mouth to remind her that she is sitting next to Gav, but a nearby woman overseeing a brood of kids clucks her tongue in disapproval and he shuts it again very quickly.

It’s not like Gav isn’t a steel wall already anyway. It actually worries him a lot.

(Last night when they reached the hotel, Grantaire was sitting on the porch and Gav sat beside him, arms folded around himself like he wants to curl up into Grantaire’s side but he can’t because _cuddles are for girls._ Grantaire fucking _ached_ because god, he’d been there, and he knew exactly how hard that shit sticks with you.)

Oh god, Grantaire realises with sudden relief mixed with dawning horror, he isn’t a soccer mum. He’s a _hippie_ mum. He picks at his burger for a moment before deciding, _fuck it,_ there are worse things to be. He should embrace his destiny.

It doesn’t take long after lunch to get to their destination. Bossuet lives in a small house in Fitzroy, near the railway station and fairly close to the city. He swears there will be enough room. It’s approaching sunset by the time they reach it, afternoon sunlight melting into red. Grantaire watches through the window and listens to the girl’s murmured conversation.

“Sheppard’s delight” Eponine says.

“Is that a type of pie?”

“It means it won’t rain tomorrow.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“School, remember? Everyone said it.”

“I don’t remember.”

“It was Sailors” Musichetta says. “Sailors warning.”

“That sounds like a boy band.”

“Oh my god, it does.”

Gav is asleep, so they keep their giggles hushed. Grantaire considers his desire to join the conversation. He closes his eyes and lets the feeling wash over him, doesn't say a word.

The guy who opens the door is not Bossuet. He glares like a small herd of children just refused to get off his lawn. Grantaire hopes that’s his default expression.

“You’re the kids from Brisbane?” He asks. _Kids._ Like he’s eighty years old instead of probably the same age as them.

“Uh. Sorry?”

The guy sighs and opens the door more widely, which Grantaire takes to mean _be our guest, be our guest!_ Or something _._

“I’m Enjolras” the guy says, and leads him down hallway lined with mirrors to a bedroom, “he/him pronouns – one of you is trans, right?”

“Yeah, that’s Cosette. Big doe eyes and shiny hair. Currently wearing a FOB hoodie.”

“Good to know.”

He pauses and glances over. Grantaire pretends not to notice. He gets the whole _state your name and pronouns_ thing – god knows it’s helped Cos - but it always gives him the shakes. He swallows down a lump and the guy blessedly lets the moment pass.

“Two of you will have to share the bed,” he says, “there’s also the trundle bed for the kid – Gavin?”

"Gavroche."

"Right, sorry."

Grantaire wants to make some friendly sounding joke about wierd name solidarity, but his attempts at being friendly usually come across as more obnoxious, so he just stays quiet and carries Gav into the room. Grantaire takes off his shoes and pulls the blankets over him. There are about four pillows on the big bed so he grabs one and gives it to Gav to snuggle. Enjolras raises an eyebrow at him. Grantaire shrugs.

“He thinks he’s too old for teddy bears.”

“Ah.”

Eponine comes in heaving her bag.

“Where’s Bossuet?” She asks.

“Work. He’ll be back soon.”

He hovers a little awkwardly, like he wants to ask if she needs help, but instead he just walks out again.

“Will you share with us?” Eponine asks, “just for tonight. I want to give Cos a break.”

“Sure.”

“I brought your stuff.” She throws the bag at him, “That’s not enough, R.”

“Like I need that many clothes.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

He rolls his eyes.

“Also, you do need clothes. More clothes. You wear the same thing every day. I’m going to be sharing a bed with you so I really need to know: do you even own pajamas?”

“What is even the point of pajama’s?”

“It’s more comfortable.”

“Boxers are comfortable.”

“Oh my god.”

“I’ll wear a t-shirt”

“Please, for the ever loving fuck, not the one you’re wearing now. You stink.”

Grantaire doesn’t think this it all that fair considering how long they’d all been trapped in a car together, but if he suggests that Eponine has somehow managed to come out smelling anything less pleasent than vanilla and orange blossoms, he might find himself in a world of pain half way through the night. He nods begrudginly. Eponine looks smug. Then she punches him softly in the arm.

“I left it in the car.” She says softly, “If you want it. You know.”

She walks out. He takes a moment, sitting on the bed with his head in his hands. Then he follows her out, shutting the door gently behind him.

The living room is full of people. He swallows and moves forward into the room. Eponine is Cosette is engaged in a seemingly hilarious conversation with a dopey but sweet looking kid – oh god he sounds like Enjolras – and Musichetta is wrapped up on the couch next to a guy with a cane who seems to have a lot of passionate feelings about manatees. Grantaire can’t really fault him for that. One of the guys waves at his and Eponine languidly as she settles down onto a beanbag.

“Combeferre” He says. “Sorry, we’re all a little drunk right now. We’re celebrating.”

He seems considerably less high than the others. Except Enjolras, whose whole grumpy old man demenour is starting to make a tad more sense. He's standing in the corner of the room, staring at the people spread around the room like he's trying to make glaring loud. He's pretty close to successful, from the looks of things.

“Joly’s manuscript is getting published.” Musichetta said, gesturing at manatee guy. She has a pretty weird sort of fierce pride in her eyes considering she barely knows the guy.

“Congrats.” Eponine says.

Grantaire settles next to her and she absently ruffles his hair. He settles into it. Rests his head lightly on her shoulder. Joly starts chatting a little shyly about his manuscript.

“Poetry,” he tells Epoine, “Kind of… inspired by the ocean, and, uh… other things.”

Then he and Musichetta get into a conversation about some person called Dorothy Porter and Grantaire slumps back in the beanbag, burying his shaking hands under his knees.

Eponine glances over and nudges him.

“I think it’s time to sleep,” she says, staring down at her hands. “I’m tired.”

“Yeah, same.”

Grantaire gets up and nods at the group, who ignore him at large although Cosette looks up and smiles. He and Eponine walk together down the hallway, Eponine gripping one of his hands tightly. She doesn’t ask him if he’s okay. He appreciates that. They crawl into bed and she nudges her head into his shoulder and then moves back slightly, giving him space to move away. It’s a silent indicator: _I’m okay to cuddle if you are._ He appreciates that too. He falls asleep with his nose pressed into her shoulder and her arms wrapped around his shoulders.


	4. Give These Ghosts a New Home

No one’s around when Grantaire finally drags his ass out of bed. Possibly because it’s somewhere close to 2pm. Eponine had already woken up, although probably not by much, because she never gets up before 1 if she can help it. He finds her sitting on the steps out the back door, staring out at a small overgrown garden. It’s full of lavender and foxglove and wild, creeping plants he can’t name.

“You snore, asshole” Eponine says without turning around.

“Whatever.”

He sits beside her and tracks the motion of the bees under the dappled light. Eponine rests her head on his shoulder and they sit quietly for a while.

“Cos took Gav to the park.” She says finally, “Musichetta went out with Joly. I thought we could start job hunting.”

“Today?”

“We need the money, R. Come on.”

He sighs. “Can we just sit for a while longer?”

She nods. They sit for an hour, soaking up the dreamy sunlight feeling. Then she nudges him and he pulls himself to his feet, grumbling slightly.

Job hunting is hardly Grantaire’s favorite activity. He isn’t worried about Eponine, who has a great reference list and a well cultivated working persona. Grantaire is more in the ‘act like a smart ass, hope it covers up the nervousness and somehow charms potential employers’ school of behavior, so he doesn’t so much have high hopes for himself. Trudging down side streets into bookshops and coffee shops with bitchy owners on a mission that is pretty much doomed isn’t his idea of a fun time.

He ends up trailing after Eponine while she enters stores and gives him bitchy looks in between.

He’s kicking his heels outside a hippie looking store with dark windows when he spots a bright head of hair wandering down the street.

“Hey!” He calls.

Enjolras turns, spots him, and smiles a little.

“Hey,” He calls back, crossing the street.

 _Oh, sure Grantaire,_ he thinks, _call out to the magnificent angel man. Because you’re so good at talking to_ normal _people._

“Enjolras, right? We met yesterday, I’m staying at your house?”

“I know.”

“Eponine and I are job hunting.”

“Both of you?”

“Ah, I guess? I mean Eponine is, I’m more… slacking, I guess.” He laughs a little self consciously, “Laziness” He adds, nodding slow and with mock seriousness.

There’s a line appearing on Enjolras’s forehead that tells him this did not go over well.

“I mean,” he adds, “she kind of needs a job, which I… I’m pretty good, for now. She’s trying to get established so she can take care of Gav…”

“Shouldn’t you be helping with that?”

Grantaire flounders for a second.

“Um… I – I do, where I can… I guess, I mean I’m pretty useless with kids. Pretty useless in general.”

Enjolras glares at him and _wow,_ that guy can work some serious voltage.

“You think that’s an excuse?

“Uh.” Grantaire says slowly, drawing out the word. “I? I guess?”

He hovers somewhat awkwardly.

“So you don't even try?”

“I… I try.”

Grantaire takes a deep breath. He thinks about all the times he’s looked after Gav, spent time with him, grasping hopelessly for something to say, give him something permanent that will help the kid feel safe and comfortable and _happy._ He never could come up with anything.

Enjolras is looking at him with pure disgust.

“Are you busy, or can we get a move on?” Eponine asks from behind him.

“How’d it go?” Grantaire asks.

Eponine shrugs.

“I’m ready for sushi,” she says. “You want to join us?”

Enjolras shakes his head and leaves. Eponine doesn’t ask.

“I don’t think he likes me much.” Grantaire says forlornly when they’re sitting eating lunch.

“He’s a dick” She says, comfortably sure she knows exactly who he’s talking about.

“I was talking about Joly.”

“No you weren’t”

Curse her.

“Fine. No, he’s not a dick.” Grantaire pauses, “He’s just… really sensitive? And kind of angry.”

Now that he’s calmer, and not under death-glare attack, Grantaire can kind of start to appreciate how weird the whole thing was.

“He went like… Super off at me for not trying to find a job hard enough? And then he said I should help you more with Gav.”

“You help just fine.” Eponine says simply.

Grantaire exahales, long and slow.

“You don’t wish I…”

“No.” Eponine snorts, “I don’t wish you helped more. I don’t have the _right_ to wish you helped more..”

“But if you did, you would?”

“Grantaire you help a hell of a lot more than our actual parents”

“Because that’s saying _so much.”_

“Drop it.”

“Fine.”

They eat in silence for a while. Then Eponine asks,

“Did you like him? Before he went crazy on you?”

“I’ve barely spoken to him.” Grantaire says, “He’s just, like, superattractive.”

Eponine snorts.

“But _weirdly_ so. You know? Like he’s the physically perfect human created by androids to infiltrate the masses.”

She laughs so hard she doubles over.

“Or something.” Grantaire continues, unabashed, “Perfect human actually an android created by aliens.”

“Explains why he’s so weird.”

“ _Right??”_

“He’s not particularly attractive, though.”

“You just like guys who look like they could kill you”

“You just like pretty people.”

Grantaire sighs. He really does.

“If he’s rude to you again I can kick his ass for you.” She adds.

“He wasn’t rude to me.”

Eponine stares at him pointedly.

“He looked at you like you were a _rabid bear._ ”

“You’re not helping.”

“You don’t need my help.”

He begs to differ, which must show because she gives him a bitchface and steals his tuna roll.

“How do you think Musichetta is going to get along with that guy?” Grantaire asked. "Enjolras."

“Could go either way.”

“Cosette?”

“She’ll be fine.”

Grantaire slumps down.

“So I’ll be the only one he thinks is a stain on humanity?”

“Probably.”

Great. Because he’s the best at dealing with people’s dislike for him.

They wander a little on their way back to the house, soaking up the different atmosphere of the city. It’s well into the evening when they get back, Cossette and Joly cooking up a stirfry in the kitchen while singing songs from Aladdin at the top of her lungs.

“How’d it go?” Cos asks them.

“R did not drop off a single resume.” Eponine snips.

Cosette smiles sympathetically at him. He likes Cosette.

They eat dinner out on the back porch, in front of the sprawling garden that smells like lavender. It feels lazy and perfect. Joly eats with them, Grantiare's worried he's going to start talking about things Grantaire doesn't really understand again, but they're all fairly quiet. He sleeps in the spare room that night. Eponine shares with Cosette.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Grantaire gets up astoundingly early the next morning and, for no particular reason, applies for every job he can. He even drops into Eponine’s workplace, which is apparently not a hippy store after all.

“Huh.” Grantaire says when he walks in to see bookshelves and racks of music instead of like, herbs. And things.

“You’re an idiot” Eponine says fondly.

“I don’t know” Grantaire says, “Early Dawn is still a pretty hippy-ish name. But this is nice, ‘Poine.”

A guy around their age with a pretty-boy face walks up.

“This is Montparnasse” Eponine says casually, “He’s my manager.”

 _Oh god please Eponine don’t have a fling with your manager_ Grantaire thinks, and Eponine glares like she can read his mind.

“Pleased to meet you” Montparnasse says, and Grantaire hands over his resume and tries to think of something intelligent to say. Eponine rolls her eyes.

“I’ll see you at lunch, okay?”

Grantaire nods and leaves.

He’s certain he’ll never get a single call.

“I never do” He bemoans, “remember all those times I tried to get a job at home and failed? No one wants to hire me I’m a loser.”

“You need connections.” Cosette says soothingly, “Or to be a well formed force of nature like Ep” she amends, “It’s not your fault.”

“You’re my favorite.” Grantaire says, snuggling into her on the couch.

“I got a job” Eponine says smugly, “So really I should be your favorite since I’m supporting your ass once your money runs out.”

“I doubt working the counter is going to earn you enough to support yourself, let alone the two of us”.

 _and Gav,_ he thinks.

“I bet your parents would send more money if you tell them you and Gav will be coming home otherwise.” Cosette says thoughtfully.

“Huh.” Eponine says, “that could work.”

“So I’ll be living off your parents?” Grantaire makes a disgusted face.

“Ripping off my parents”

“Oh. I can live with that.”

She laughs. Cosette rolls her eyes. Grantaire leans back in his chair.

“You want to make me your kept woman?” He asks, batting his eyelashes.

Joly, Bousette and Muschietta walks in as she throws a pillow in his face.

"Ooh, pillow fight" Joly says brightly.

"No" Muschietta says. She's been kind of down on pillow fights since the Great Incident of 2011.

That night they all snuggle down on the couch for a movie marathon that puts Grantaire into a total coma by the seventh hour of romcom action and fried food. He gets up to put Gav to bed because Eponine and Cossette are bundled up in about twenty blankets and Cossette is drooling all over Muscietta's shoulder.

Gav is too wiped out to complain much so it's not a difficult task, but Grantaire is still shuffling like a zombie by the time the teeth are brushed and pyjama's are on. He runs into Enjolras in the corridor, looking slightly less intimidating but ten times more adorable with his food stained shirt and rumbled hair.

I owe you an apology” he says

Grantaire makes an incomprehensible half awake noise that hopefully conveys his confusion.

“I thought…” Enjolras trails off awkwardly, “I mean, I just, I’ve been stressed out lately, and I swear to god that’s not an excuse, but Combeferre tells me that just because I take all the small grievances of the world personally doesn’t mean I’m always being fair.”

"Um." Says Grantaire.

"I just... wanted to appologise."

"Okay," Grantaire says, "it's all good."

Enjolras nodds. They hover awkwardly for a few seconds and do a mad scramble shuffle to get out of each others way and back into the living room.

They've started watching _Ever After_ without him. He glares at Eponine's head as he settles back in.

Cosette starts with a job seekers program for LGBTI people with disabilities. She corners Grantaire in his room to try and convince him to join too.

"Anxiety is not a disability"

"It is and they _specifically state on their website"_ she waves the laptop she's carrying in his face, apparently not realising the screen has gone black _"_ that mental health problems that may be a barrier to employment-"

"- anxiety isn't what's stopping me from getting a job - "

"Grantaire, this could really help you"

"It's not for me."

 _I'm not like you_ he thinks _._

"You're being dumb."

"I don't count"

"You _do_ count" she says forcefully, "and I know there is a plethora of stupid things going on in your head right now that you don't want to mention to me but _I know,_ Grantaire, and I'm going to set Muscietta and Eponine on you."

He pales.

"You wouldn't."

"I would."

"You're my favourite" he says pleadingly.

She smiles her trademark disney princess smile at him and walks away.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work in progress set in Australia. I myself am Australian, however I do not know the logistics of roadtripping from Queensland to Melbourne, or how long it would take, because my memories of that particular adventure are both blurry and full of mindless staring and years of scenery. So just ignore anything that doesn't make sense (pretty please).
> 
> Cosette was emotionally abused by Eponine's parents- it's mentioned briefly in this chapter. The affects on her are described but not the abuse itself.
> 
> Grantaires parents are pretty shitty in that they ignore him.


End file.
